


SEA.

by starryhxseok



Category: bts army
Genre: Amnesia, Drowning, Joon - Freeform, M/M, Major Character Injury, Memory Loss, bts - Freeform, namjin - Freeform, namjoon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 01:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15546234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryhxseok/pseuds/starryhxseok
Summary: One can hear the ocean before they see it. Namjoon knows that. The sound of waves crashing on sand; Namjoon knows that most people find the lulling, monotonous melody of the ocean against the shore peaceful and soothing. But what Namjoon doesn’t know is why the sound of ocean meeting earth doesn’t relax him, rather, makes him feel as if he’s drowning miles away from the waves. What Namjoon doesn’t know is why it makes his lungs burn and his head spin and his heart ache.What Namjoon doesn’t know is what happened before he saw or heard the ocean for the first time he can remember. And what he doesn’t know, does hurt him an awful lot. And he can’t figure out why.





	SEA.

Namjoon knows that when he wakes up in the morning, he needs to wake up at 7:30 AM, and he needs to brush his teeth. He knows he needs to make his bed, make himself a bowl of cereal, and watch cartoons in his pajamas until 9:00 AM. After that, he knows he needs to take his medicine. He knows he needs to remember to take two of the blue pills, one of the big white ones, and three of the little white ones.

He doesn’t know what the medicine does, but he tries not to think about that. The more Namjoon thinks about what he doesn’t know, the more stressed and confused he gets. Because, the truth if the matter is, he doesn’t know a lot. He doesn’t know how old he is, and he doesn’t know his favorite color. He doesn’t know his parents or if he has any siblings. Sometimes, he forgets what his own face looks like, and it startles him each time he passes by a mirror. 

He doesn’t know anything before he woke up in a sterile white room, hardly able to move his limbs, skinny and malnourished and bruised all over. He couldn’t remember how to speak or how to count to ten or how to eat with chopsticks. It had taken six months in the hospital, which his caretaker, Hoseok, tells him is unheard of. He has a high IQ, apparently, but Namjoon can’t remember what they said it is. He’s very forgetful, and the only reason he remembers anything important is from the words on the purple Post-It Notes Hoseok writes and sticks on practically every available surface. At first, Hoseok stayed with him, but Namjoon recovered so quickly that now he only needs to stop by once a day to make sure Namjoon is okay and to help him with his physical therapy.

A medical miracle. That’s what they call Namjoon’s recovery, but quite frankly, Namjoon doesn’t see what’s so miraculous about it. His hands still shake, and they spasm, making him drop things out of nowhere. His knees randomly give out, and he has to use va cane. He spontaneously blanks on simple words when he speaks, and sometimes, the letters on Hoseok’s notes get all jumbled up in his brain and it takes him five minutes to read a sentence. He gets migraines so bad he sees vibrant greens and purples behind his eyelids.

But the worst thing, the thing that makes Namjoon wonder if his recovery should even be considered a recovery at all, is what happens when Namjoon hears the ocean. The only time he can really hear it is at night, when the coastal city traffic comes to a lull between three and four in the morning. The drunk people make their way off the streets and out of casinos back home, the cars get parked in their respective driveways and the city falls into a dozing state somewhere between slumber and consciousness. Then, and only then, can Namjoon hear the waves crash on the shore. 

And that is when insanity breaks loose in his brain.

Hoseok calls them night terrors. Namjoon calls them his own personal hell. The sound of the rise and fall of the tides fill his ears, and suddenly, his lungs feel waterlogged and burning all at the same time, his salty tears soak his cheeks, but when he sits up pin straight in bed, gasping for breath and in a state of panic, he doesn’t see the plain gray walls plastered with purple Post-It Notes. He sees a dank, dark room, the bottom of which is filling with water. Namjoon coughs, and he sees water come out of his mouth, he tastes salt on his tongue, and he smells the briney stench of ocean burning his nostrils. The room sways and shifts under his bed, and he hangs onto the headboard for dear life so he doesn’t fall into the growing pool of water. 

Sometimes, Hoseok hears his screams and cries and wheezing and rushes in, shaking his shoulders and shouting his name and wiping the tears off his cheeks until he snaps back to the real world, his room perfectly still and undisturnbed. But sometimes, he doesn’t, and the water fills up to the very top of the room, and Namjoon is surviving off pure instinct. He is treading water despite not really knowing how to, and he is sucking in what little oxygen is left off the top of the room. The swaying of the room makes miniature waves that splash him in the face, and then he’s choking on water and the screams that get lodged in his throat.

And then the water reaches the top, and Namjoon hits his head on the ceiling as he tries to reach the air that used to be there. He holds his breath, praying that someone will save him, that someone will unplug the hidden drain in the room and all the water will disappear into oblivion. But it doesn’t, no matter how hard he prays. His head feels like it’s going to explode, and his chest feels tight, until finally, finally, he lets go. He gives in and he breathes out, the pressure in his head immediately diminishing, watching the bubbles float to the top and pop. And he shuts his eyes, and he lets the saltwater fill his lungs, lets the swaying room turn into a gentle, easy lulling that makes him drowsy. 

Seconds before he lets himself fall into a sleep he’ll never wake up from, he feels something. He feels something clasp around his hand, something warm. And then he opens his tired eyes, his eyelids that weigh a trillion tons, and there, through the haze and the dark vignette around the edges of his vision, is a silhouette. Namjoon squints, but can’t see any facial features or defining traits, only a head, connected to a thick neck and broad shoulders, one arm at his side and one reached out, hand grasping Namjoon’s tightly. The person squeezes once, twice, three times.

And then Namjoon is alone in a dry room, his perfectly normal room with gray walls and purple Post-It Notes. His sheets are drenched, but not with saltwater, rather, his own sweat. The residue of salt is on his skin, but from his tears and perspiration. And instead of his head hurting or his throat being raw from screaming and crying, his heart hurts. Not a hurt medicine can fix, Namjoon thinks. He knows that’s not what his pills are for. Rather, a substantial pain that spawns from the insubstantial: a pain from the fact that something isn’t where it’s supposed to be. A hole, a missing piece in his puzzle, a lost star in his constellation. His heart aches for something that is not there, but Namjoon can’t quite figure out what it is for the life of him. 

And that’s the end of that. A simple night terror, nothing more. But why does it recur? Why does the ocean trigger it? As far as Namjoon knows, he’s lived at the beach all his life. So, why now? Why is all of this happening to him now?

Namjoon doesn’t really know. All he knows is his purple Post-It Notes, his cartoons, his pills, his physical therapy, and Hoseok. He knows that his night terrors are terrifying, and he knows that they hurt even though they aren’t real. He doesn’t know why, but Namjoon tries not to think about that. He doesn’t try not to think about it for the same reasons as he tries not to think about most things, though. It doesn’t make him confused or stressed.

Thinking about the ocean makes him feel empty.

And Namjoon does not know why. And he doesn’t think he ever will.


End file.
